David Diamond Wins DAMMY Of The Year

When he is not practising his usual hobby of trashing DAM vendors (deservedly in some cases, it should be said) my co-contributor has also been less than complimentary about the DAM Award business too. Although we definitely don’t agree on everything, some of the selections of the DAMMY award in previous years have made me also wonder if the judges had a full quota of worthwhile options when making their selections (noting that they are required to choose from a shortlist rather than pick an ad-hoc candidate themselves).

This year, it appears the range of nominees included David Diamond, author of the DAM Survival Guide and I would have to concur with the judges that he is a worthy winner:

“Without quality DAM education materials, individuals and businesses become confused and can be misled. I hope this award encourages others in my field to try harder when it comes to the educational materials we provide our community. The focus of a DAM software vendor should be leadership, not lead generation.” [Read More]

We frequently get accusatory emails from vendors (and others) saying that we are over-favourable to David Diamond and give him more coverage than he deserves. You can be sure that if David and/or Picturepark start producing the kind of overblown nonsense that much of the DAM market seems capable of, they will be treated in an identical fashion to everyone else. Thus far, however, their materials are excellent, well put together and focus on education rather than corny sales lines. They probably do all that because (for complex products like DAM at least) it is more effective at winning business than some of the aforementioned methods.

From everyone at DAM News, congratulations to David Diamond for winning the 2013 DAMMY Of The Year Award. We hope he continues to actively participate in the various DAM education initiatives that he has already helped to establish and also to carry on producing more of the same excellent range of DAM books, articles and webinars which he is already responsible for.

When Canto fired me in early 2012, I was ready to leave the DAM industry because I just assumed it was all polluted with garbage. DAM Survival Guide was to be my “goodbye” to DAM users and my “kiss my ass” to the DAM vendors I thought were ruining things. But while writing the book, I rediscovered my enthusiasm for this stuff.

I’m lucky that Picturepark gets the business model behind educating instead of selling, and this entire industry is lucky to have the DAM News team to help wipe away all the layers of B.S. and steer readers toward sanity. It seems that many people are starting to fight back against all the nonsense, and you guys are always at the fore of the rebellion.

Again, thank you so much–for all of it.

Greetings from Aarau, Switzerland, where I’m *just* about over horrible jet lag. :)